Aftershocks
by CallYouFern
Summary: The events of Afghanistan still haunt her. And the Aftershocks are severe.


**This is just a starter chapter, more to come ****eventually, also changed my user name from Communicationskills to what it is now. Hope you all like the story. (important A/N for story at the end)**

**Disclaimer:****declaimed**

Two months, Two months I have been home drowning my pain with any drink I can get my hands on. Nobody knows, he doesn't know, for now. I went back to work a few days ago so it's only a matter of time. He probably already noticed something was off, because he would notice something like that. Sure I have been trying to hide it. They get I need to recover from the mission, but since they don't know exactly what happened they think I should be fine now. Fine is the exact opposite of what I am, not that I would tell anybody that. Cause I'm always "fine" right? Maybe ill get better, I'm not holding my breath, though maybe I should, ill be done sooner. But I can't even think of leaving him like that. It wouldn't be right, maybe he could he help me, after all he has been through this, he knows what its like. But I don't want him to see me so messed up, so I'm still alone in this, this battle within myself.

I look at the clock on my nightstand and see it's 5:00 am. 3 hours before work starts, I get up rather slowly, shower, get dressed and drove to work. By the time I get there it's 6:15, still 2 hours early, but this has been the routine lately anyway so it's not that unusual. I put my bag at my desk and then go to the gym. I start to punch the punching bag aggressively, and after about 30 minutes my hands start to bleed. So I go to the treadmill and run at a rather fast speed and soon it's too much for my ribs to handle and I can hardly breath. I make my way the woman's locker room and shower again. When I get out I glimpse at myself in the mirror and see how pale and thin I am. Which was expected since I wasn't eating, in fact I don't even remember the last time I ate, probably to long at this point.

The bleeding on my hands has stopped but a nasty bruise took its place. I dress again and make my way back to my desk very slowly cause I'm sore all over, but I just ignore it. When I sit down its 7:00, so the ops building is filling with people. I start getting lost in my thoughts, thinking about everything, I feel so depressed all the time now, and I can't remember the last time I even smiled. I look at the cuts on my wrists and think that doing that to them was beneath me, I guess not though. I just hope nobody looks close enough. He will though, he always does. I look at my watch a see its 7:45. Time is something I have been very aware of lately. Always looking at the clock, for no reason at all really I just do. I always lose track of time so I guess when I look up and see that an hour has gone by while I was thinking meaningless thoughts it just amazes me, you know, that people can just lose themselves. 8:00, and I hear the doors open and see Callen and Sam walk in exactly on time as usual.

"Good morning Kensi" Callen says like he does everyday, so happy.

"Morning" I say back like I do everyday, trying to sound happy. But again that's not possible.

"How are you today?" Sam asks.

"I'm fin-…. I'm good…slept really well last night" I lie easily.

"That's great" he says unconvinced. Just then I see Deeks walk in.

"Morning everybody!"

"Someone's in a good mood today"

"That's because it's a great day today Callen, And how are you miss Kensilina?"

"Just fantastic!" was my obviously sarcastic reply.

"Well no need to be snippy Fern.." Deeks says with his stupid cocky grin I try and hate so much.

"Besides.. The waves were great this morning and that just makes me happy overall" he says after a few minutes. I hear a whistle sounding above me. "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow" I hear Deeks say behind me. I decide I can't stay quiet forever and reply "To Have And Have Not? Really Deeks?"

"Come on Fern, 1944, it's a classic!"

"Yeah yeah whatever." I smile at him. Possibly the first in awhile, it's kind of hard not to anyway. He smiles back, which makes me smile more. He has that effect on people. Once we are in ops he whispers in my ear "I've missed that" and I just look at him and nod in agreement. "I do too Deeks, I do too"

Later that day after a particularly hard case, well harder than most anyway, Sam proposes we all go out for a much needed drink. My first instinct is to say no because I know for sure ill get carried away, but as I start to decline Deeks immediately interrupts me and says "Come on Fern don't be a party pooper here, we all need this. Think of it as team bonding." And now saying no would cause suspicion. So against by better judgment I say yes.

Catching a ride with Deeks on the way there, he just can't stand the silence, as we all know, he asks, "Are you alright? Because I know what it's like you know? And I'm here for you, no matter what."

"I know" I whisper as my reply.

By the time we get there Sam and Callen have already gotten us a booth and a round of beers. We sit down and immediately conversations starts, I try and pace myself with my alcohol but with no such luck I end up drinking 3 beers and 2 scotches. Which those mixed with my meds will have an explosive end result. But by this point the guys have definitely noticed something's up, and when Deeks asks if I'm all right I reply with a simple no and a very drunken laugh. By this point everyone at the table is very concerned and pity is something I do _not_ want so I just say I want to go home so Deeks gets up first then I slide out of the booth behind him, and right as I stand up I feel a little light headed and the next thing I know I'm no longer standing up.

**I admit this could have been at least 2 chapters with more ****detail but the first half of this story has been sitting in my documents for months now so I just wanted to get it out of the way by this point. So instead of my original plan to make this story a very sad/alcohol problem,over dosing tragic story it will be a recovery process story. Which in turn will still have problems like that because recovery is not easy, so there will be more to come, when and how much i don't know as of yet. Thank you for reading! Please Review it helps me know what to fix and encourages me to write faster. **

**-CallYouFern**


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